Ride operator Adrienne Suzio opens the door so that Michael, left, two-year-old Niamh, middle, and Katrina Lappin of Oakland can disembark the Jolly Trolly at Children's Fairyland at Lake Merritt on Sunday, August 3, 2014 in Oakland, Calif. The Jolly Trolly has been in operation since 1954. Suzio said its design was based on the trolley in the newspaper comic strip, "Toonerville Folks." Suzio, who was born and raised in Oakland, said she visited Fairlyland as a child and began working at the park as a ride operator two years ago. She said the Jolly Trolly is her favorite ride. less

Ride operator Adrienne Suzio opens the door so that Michael, left, two-year-old Niamh, middle, and Katrina Lappin of Oakland can disembark the Jolly Trolly at Children's Fairyland at Lake Merritt on Sunday, ... more

Ride operator Adrienne Suzio does some daily paperwork before operating the Jolly Trolly at Children's Fairyland at Lake Merritt on Sunday, August 3, 2014 in Oakland, Calif. The Jolly Trolly has been in operation since 1954. Suzio said its design was based on the trolley in the newspaper comic strip, "Toonerville Folks." Suzio, who was born and raised in Oakland, said she visited Fairlyland as a child and began working at the park as a ride operator two years ago. She said the Jolly Trolly is her favorite ride. less

Ride operator Adrienne Suzio does some daily paperwork before operating the Jolly Trolly at Children's Fairyland at Lake Merritt on Sunday, August 3, 2014 in Oakland, Calif. The Jolly Trolly has been in ... more

Ride operator Adrienne Suzio clangs the bell on the Jolly Trolly to the delight of park guests at Children's Fairyland at Lake Merritt on Sunday, August 3, 2014 in Oakland, Calif. The Jolly Trolly has been in operation since 1954. Suzio said its design was based on the trolley in the newspaper comic strip, "Toonerville Folks." Suzio, who was born and raised in Oakland, said she visited Fairlyland as a child and began working at the park as a ride operator two years ago. She said the Jolly Trolly is her favorite ride. less

Ride operator Adrienne Suzio clangs the bell on the Jolly Trolly to the delight of park guests at Children's Fairyland at Lake Merritt on Sunday, August 3, 2014 in Oakland, Calif. The Jolly Trolly has been in ... more

A postcard of the Jolly Trolly. The Oakland train used to pass through Lake Shore Park near Lake Merritt. Now it runs in Children's Fairyland.

A postcard of the Jolly Trolly. The Oakland train used to pass through Lake Shore Park near Lake Merritt. Now it runs in Children's Fairyland.

Photo: Fairyland File

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The Jolly Trolly during its early years. The Oakland train used to pass through Lake Shore Park near Lake Merritt. Now it runs in Children's Fairyland.

The Jolly Trolly during its early years. The Oakland train used to pass through Lake Shore Park near Lake Merritt. Now it runs in Children's Fairyland.

Photo: Fairyland File

Image 9 of 9

Decades of miles and smiles for Fairyland's Jolly Trolly

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The waving starts first thing in the morning, after Jolly Trolly conductor Adrienne Suzio has finished all her safety checks.

She waves at the first young children running straight to the Children's Fairyland ride, regulars who were at the front of the line waiting for the gates of the park to open. More children outside the trolly wave back as the train passes through the park. The adults are last to get on board, but by the end of the day they're stopping and extending a reflexive salutation to the train as well - childhood memories of their own beginning to surface.

"It's the Jolly Trolly, so you want to spread all the joy as you drive it," Suzio says. "The more kids you wave at, the more wave back. And then the (people) in the trolly will wave at them. It's a contagious waving."

As the quirky rainbow-colored train celebrates its 60th year of operation in Oakland, The Chronicle went on a ride-along earlier this summer. The Children's Fairyland train appears to be frozen in time since it was built in 1954, originally running outside the nursery rhyme-themed amusement park near Lake Merritt. It remains Fairyland's most popular ride.

"It has a rich and proud history," says Fairyland executive director C.J. Hirschfield. "Millions and millions of kids over the last 60 years have enjoyed the trolly."

The design for the trolly was inspired by a similar train in the early 20th century newspaper strip Toonerville Folks. Two Oakland police officers, motorcycle cop Jack Francis and officer Sam Daugherty, built the trolly as a longer ride around Lake Shore Park, which children would ride for a small fee. Fairyland acquired the trolly in the mid-1980s. It runs inside the park now and is free with admission.

Mad scientist vibe

The construction is one of a kind, with no trolly flagship store from which to order spare parts. So after six decades, the machinery has a mad scientist vibe. Suzio says the hand brake was salvaged from a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The throttle that controls speed, called the potentiometer, looks a little like a mood lighting dimmer switch.

Cosmetically, the ride looks almost exactly the same as it did during the Eisenhower administration. Under the hood, it has undergone one major overhaul.

"It used to have a VW engine, and it was gas-powered," Hirschfield says. "In the late 1980s we switched it over to electric."

Suzio's path to becoming the Jolly Trolly conductor was set a few years ago, when her roommate, a Children's Fairyland employee, kept returning from work in a good mood.

"She would come home with all these great stories: 'There was a dragon, and then I was in the (giant) shoe ...' " Suzio remembers. "I said, 'OK, you have the best job ever. And you're outside with kids and animals. How do I do that?' "

Suzio, an Oakland native in her 20s who went to Fairyland as a child, is a natural. She has a calm demeanor around the kids and parents waiting in line, patience for the ride's many stops and safety checks, and a first-rate wave. Fairyland requires Jolly Trolly operators to ring the bell at stops and when the ride begins. During each two-loop ride, Suzio rings it 10 or 20 more times just for fun.

The trolly ride is always a work in progress, mechanically as well as from an aesthetic point of view. The park's Old West Junction, restored in 2005, was a boon for the trolly, which passes through a tunnel underneath the bank and county jail. Fairyland recently received funding from the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club to overhaul the interior of the tunnel, hopefully with a light element. On a recent Friday, Fairyland art and restoration director Shannon Taylor was making crystals and building walls for the project, which should debut this year.

Work at Fairyland for a few years and you probably have a good trolly story. Hirschfield's involves her now-husband, an attorney who came to Fairyland in a suit once when they were dating.

'My kind of guy'

"The trolly went by. And of course like you do, I just started waving at the trolly, and so did he," Hirschfield says. "I knew that this was the guy for me. Wearing his suit, waving at the kids in the trolly. I thought, 'This is my kind of guy.' "

Suzio's favorite moment came one day when the park was closed and she needed bodies in the trolly for a weight test. She put a call out on the walkie-talkie for Fairyland employees to come ride in the cars.

"Just packing them all in and hearing them all yell and get to be kids again," Suzio says. "I think that everyone who works here is a kid at heart. You have to be."

For the Town: To a see a video of Adrienne Suzio and the trolly, part of a series focusing on Oakland residents, go to Peter Hartlaub's The Big Event blog on SFGate.com: http://blog.sfgate.com/thebigevent.

Children's Fairyland is open seven days per week in the summer: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. More information at http://fairyland.org.

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